No, Virginia

A GOP electoral scheme is a bad idea.

By

James Taranto

January 25, 2013

Barack Obama carried Virginia's 13 electoral votes in both 2008 and 2012, and some Republicans in Richmond would like to prevent anyone from doing so again. And the Old Dominion isn't alone, as the Washington Post reports:

Republicans in Virginia and a handful of other battleground states are pushing for far-reaching changes to the electoral college in an attempt to counter recent success by Democrats.

In the vast majority of states, the presidential candidate who wins receives all of that state's electoral votes. The proposed changes would instead apportion electoral votes by congressional district, a setup far more favorable to Republicans. Under such a system in Virginia, for instance, President Obama would have claimed four of the state's 13 electoral votes in the 2012 election, rather than all of them.

Other states considering similar changes include Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, which share a common dynamic with Virginia: They went for Obama in the past two elections but are controlled by Republicans at the state level.

Such a move would be perfectly constitutional: Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that electors are to be appointed "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct." (With respect to the District of Columbia, that power belongs to Congress.) Almost all states choose a slate of electors via a statewide popular vote in which the presidential candidates' names appear on the ballot. But over the years states have employed different methods of selection, including votes by district, votes for individual electors (which occasionally yielded partisan splits), and even direct appointment of electors by the state legislature.

In fact, two states already use the congressional district system: Maine (since 1972) and Nebraska (since 1996). As a formal matter, the current proposals (we wrote about Pennsylvania's in 2011) would be identical to the Maine-Nebraska system, except that in Virginia, the state's two additional electors would be awarded to the candidate who carried a majority of congressional districts rather than the statewide popular vote. (Each state's number of electors equals its number of House districts plus 2, corresponding to its Senate delegation.)

ENLARGE

As a practical matter, however, the current proposals would be far likelier to change the outcome of an election. Because Maine and Nebraska are small, relatively homogenous states, neither has split its vote except in 2008, when Obama carried one of the Cornhusker State's three congressional districts and thus received one electoral vote. Big states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia would be assured of a split Electoral College delegation in just about every election.

The motive for the current proposals is manifestly partisan. As the Post article notes, the states considering such a plan all went for Obama in both his elections and have Republican control of the legislative process. The shoe was once on the other foot. After George W. Bush's narrow 2000 victory, it was Democrats who favored electoral college "reforms" such as a 2004 Colorado ballot initiative that would have allocated the state's 9 electoral votes proportionally rather than winner-take-all, and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, in which several blue states have pledged, if enough other states agree, to allocate their electors to any candidate who receives a plurality of the national popular vote. (We explained in 2010 why this is unworkable.)

So of course now it is commentators on the left who are crying foul about attempts to "rig" the election by undermining the sacred Electoral College. We'd like to rebut some of their bad arguments before going on to explain why we think it's a bad idea.

It should be said that this scheme, if carried out on a large scale, will guarantee an explosion of recounts. In any district where there is a narrow margin between the two candidates, there will be every incentive to challenge the results. Republicans present this as a way to streamline elections, but in reality, it would complicate them, and drag out the process for weeks--if not months. It would be Florida in the 2000 election, multiplied by 435.

So how come there's never been a recount controversy in Maine or Nebraska? Because in order for a 2000-like situation to materialize, two conditions much prevail: (1) The Electoral College count has to be close enough to flip via a recount, and (2) the vote has to be close enough to merit a recount in places accounting for enough electoral votes to make the flip possible.

It's likely that voting by congressional district would significantly reduce the chance of the second condition prevailing. If Florida had used the system in 2000, for example, at most 2 or 3 of the state's 25 electoral votes would have been in question, and Al Gore would have won enough districts' votes to put him above 270 electoral votes, thereby giving him victory without a recount (unless perhaps Bush chose to challenge Gore's 366-vote victory in New Mexico).

Bouie also predictably cries racism:

It should also be said, again, that this constitutes a massive disenfranchisement of African American and other nonwhite voters, who tend to cluster near urban areas. When you couple this with the move on Monday to redraw the state's electoral maps--eliminating one state senate district and packing black voters into another, diluting their strength--it's as if Virginia Republicans are responding to Obama's repeat victory in the state by building an electoral facsimile of Jim Crow.

He refers to a vote in the state Senate--currently split evenly between the parties--to redraw district lines to the GOP's advantage. (One Democratic lawmaker was out of town at the time of the vote, allowing the GOP to ram the measure through on a party-line vote.)

We'd call that a rather brazen act of partisanship, but to liken it to "Jim Crow" is really rich. "Packing black voters" into legislative districts so that they constitute a majority, a practice known as racial gerrymandering, has been going on for decades in the name of enhancing black voting strength. Since blacks tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic, racial gerrymandering also helps Republicans by making non-black-majority districts less Democratic. This is a case in which the interests of blacks, at least as defined by the civil rights establishment, are in conflict with the interests of the Democratic Party. In shouting "Jim Crow" Bouie is attempting to distract his readers (and perhaps himself) from that conflict.

All that said, we think the proposals in Virginia and elsewhere are a bad idea, chiefly because they would be likely to promote cynicism and confusion. There is no perfectly fair way of electing a president, but we have a more or less uniform system (the Maine and Nebraska exceptions have little practical consequence). If states start adopting divergent rules for partisan advantage, the whole system will start looking rigged to whichever side loses the election.

Such an appeal to fair play may sound naive to partisans. After all, the other side has shown its willingness to consider such measures as well. So far, however, neither side has succeeded. The danger is that if one does, the other side will (quite justifiably) become more determined to use similar tactics, with an overall result that will be bad for the country.

These proposals also are based on a static analysis. They change the rules so that the losing party would have done better in the last election, but the effects on future elections are unpredictable. The Puffington Host runs the numbers and finds that Mitt Romney would have won the election with 273 electoral votes if every state used the Maine-Nebraska system. But of course not every state is about to adopt that system. The Democrats who control the legislative process in California, Illinois and Maryland, and dominate it in New York, for example, are perfectly happy with winner-take-all.

The Virginia plan would benefit Republicans only in elections in which the Democrat carries the state. When a Republican does, the Democrat would benefit. In 2000, Al Gore carried three Virginia districts. Had each one given him an electoral vote, he'd have beaten Bush, 270-268.

Finally, the Virginia plan would be bad for Virginia (or any swing state that adopted it), inasmuch as it would reduce its influence in presidential races. Rather than the candidates flocking to the state to campaign for 13 electoral votes, they'd ignore it since at most a few of them would be in play.

Though come to think of it, some voters might regard the absence of candidates and campaign commercials as a big plus.

Tax That Fellow Behind That Tree One of the many ObamaCare provisions to take effect at the beginning of this year is a 2.3% tax on medical devices. Novation, a company that purchases medical devices for hospitals, announces in a press release that it is shocked to learn that the price of such devices is going up:

The community-based, pediatric and academic hospitals served by Novation are reporting that many are being directly billed by at least one medical device manufacturer to cover the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act's medical device tax. But Novation . . . is taking a firm stance with suppliers who are trying to pass their medical device excise tax obligations on to hospitals.

While the administration of the Medical Device Excise Tax is complex and still evolving, it is clear that Congress did not intend to impose this tax on hospitals. . . .

"Novation is taking a firm position with manufacturers that the Medical Device Tax may not be passed onto the hospital members we serve," says Jody Hatcher, President and CEO of Novation. "While most device manufacturers are taking responsibility for this Tax, there are some manufacturers attempting to pass their obligation on to hospitals. This Tax should be the responsibility of the manufacturers, and Novation is dedicated to ensuring that member hospitals are impacted by it as little as possible."

Why not go all the way and demand that manufacturers give devices to hospitals free of charge?

A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial.

Or has she? She continues: "House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for 'tampering with evidence.' "

Hmm, Cathrynn sounds like a girl's name to us. We suppose there are crazy misogynists who are female, but that might be a signal to check things out carefully. And as it turns out, Bassett appended an update to her post:

Brown said in a statement Thursday that she introduced the bill with the goal of punishing the person who commits incest or rape and then procures or facilitates an abortion to destroy the evidence of the crime.

"New Mexico needs to strengthen its laws to deter sex offenders," said Brown. "By adding this law in New Mexico, we can help to protect women across our state."

Bassett's original post quoted the text of the bill: "Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime."

That's pretty clear. Procuring, facilitating or coercing an abortion would be evidence tampering only when it is done "with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime." Whatever one may think of abortion, surely a rapist doesn't have the "right to choose."

One small study caught my eye. Robert Oprisko of Butler University found that half of the jobs in university political science programs went to graduates of the top 11 schools. That is to say, if you have a Ph.D. from Harvard, Stanford, Princeton and so on, your odds of getting a job are very good. If you earned your degree from one of the other 100 degree-granting universities, your odds are not. These other 100 schools don't even want to hire the sort of graduates they themselves produce. They want the elite credential.

All this tells us is that there's a buyer's market for the labor of political scientists. That means demand is low and supply is high. To put it another way, there are simply too many political scientist Ph.D.s. Some of those universities should shut down their programs.

Right to Lie "An aide to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was so taken by Lance Armstrong's first memoir of battling back from cancer to win the Tour de France multiple times that he immediately read it 'cover to cover' and recommended it to several friends," the Associated Press reports. Naturally, the guy is suing:

Rob Stutzman and several others who bought Armstrong's "It's Not About The Bike" and "Every Second Counts" have filed a lawsuit in Sacramento federal court. It alleges Armstrong duped them into believing the books were inspirational true accounts of the cyclist's accomplishments done without performance-enhancing drugs.

The lawsuit accuses Armstrong and the books' publishers of committing fraud, false advertising and other wrongdoing for publishing the cyclist's vehement denials that he wasn't a cheat. . . .

The lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of all readers who felt misled by Armstrong's denials of drug use in "It's Not About The Bike," published in 2000, and "Every Second Counts," published three years later.

"Although Stutzman does not buy or read many books, he found Armstrong's book incredibly compelling and recommended the book to several friends," the lawsuit stated.

This lawsuit will go nowhere, since it isn't about commercial speech or defamation. As to Stutzman, maybe he ought to read some books for a change, starting with one about the First Amendment.

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